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Saturday, 22 March 2014

Week 33 & 34 - Alice's doppelganger

For the first time ever I've merged two weeks worth of work into one post because things have been so hectic and I've also have taken a few days of annual leave. I'll be back on top form next week after some rest. I havent had access to my work emails in quite a while because of issues that I will bring up later in this blog post but I will get back to as many people as possible, as soon as possible. I think that the easiest way to grab mr will be through Twitter sand my Work Facebook.NUS Women's Conference
I attended my third National NUS Women's Conference and I'm pleased to announce that I have been elected to become the next National NUS Women's Officer. I will begin working at the NUS in July thank you to all of my amazing team and I will miss the wonderful members of staff at ULU.

The SWP
So it was decided that that the Socialist Workers Party Annual Festival would not be held at ULU and I wrote a statement signed by all the ULU liberation officers and the ethics and environment officer. Later the statement was also signed by three other officers. The statement was also signed by over 100 student activists, including sabbatical officers and NUS liberation campaign committee members. You can find this statement here on the ULU website and the Socialist Workers Party's pitfall response to the statement here (Trigger warning for rape apologism). Thank you to all the students who have signed the statement and have taking action on their campuses and communities to make sure that it is stated that the Socialist Workers Party are rape-apologists and not welcome in our movement.

The split
ULU has a clear safer spaces policy, which was passed in one of the first ULU senate which outlines that the relevant liberation officer has the final say in regards to allowing certain groups who are believed to create unsafe space for a liberation group. This policy and procedure is as clear as day, the president should support the officer elected to represent that group, not sit on the fence, gaslight them, talk behind their backs whilst telling them they have no time to deal with their pressing matter, and ignore the outline of the safer spaces policy. After feeling unsupported, undermined and ignored by my fellow sabbatical officers (again), I decided that I could no longer work in same space as them. Theres little room mediation when my word as an elected representative and women's rights are treated less important than dusty Trotskyist factional politics. Due to the previous points its very unlikely that I will return to the office.